Captive (Human Ranch Book 1) Read online

  Copyright 2017 by S. L. Hadley

  All Rights Reserved.

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  Captive

  Human Ranch

  Volume One

  By S. L. Hadley

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  Katie woke, shivering, but it still took her several seconds to realize something was wrong. She was in a bare, unfamiliar room with grey, metal walls that gave it the atmosphere of a prison cell. The firm, blanketless mattress beneath her didn’t help in that regard.

  Of more immediate important—to Katie, at least—was the fact she’d woken naked.

  The last thing she remembered was bundling up in her impossibly cozy Cosabellas and curling up in bed. Even that much was hazy, but whatever followed was even more inscrutable. At some point in the night, Katie had been abducted, stripped, and brought here.

  Wherever here was.

  Fighting down a surge of panic, Katie lunged upright—and nearly dislocated her shoulder in the process. Gasping at the sudden, wrenching pain, she flopped back down onto the mattress and studied the source. She’d overlooked it in the room’s darkness but, by squinting, she could just barely make sense of the blurry shape.

  A thin, faintly luminescent, gold band encircled her wrist. It was no thicker than a bracelet and could easily have passed for a bit of common jewelry under different circumstances. But, as she tugged and strained in a futile effort to separate the fetter from the bedframe, Katie found it the most loathsome thing she’d ever laid eyes on.

  Her struggling ceased in an instant as an unnoticed door on the far wall opened. The light beyond was dim, but practically blinding in the near-darkness of the room. Worse were the shadows cast, hinting at an approaching figure. Katie’s terror multiplied at the sight, stopping her breath in her lungs.

  The figure stepped into view and, though the backlit hallway beyond the door obscured the being’s finer details, what remained was more than enough to fill Katie with dread.

  It—whatever it was—could not possibly have passed for human. The torso looked vaguely humanoid, but that was where the resemblance ended. It stood upon four spindly, spiderlike appendages that each ended in a deadly looking foot that was half-hoof and half-talon. Though there were only two arms, they could not really be called arms in the traditional sense. Each appeared to swim through the air, boneless and prone to splitting into twos and threes whenever the thought occurred to them. Only when the strands came together did they bear the faintest similarity to a human limb.

  In fact, the thing they reminded her of the most was the metallic claws of a certain Spiderman villain. Which meant that, at any moment, Tobey Maguire ought to show up, right?

  It was a mad, delirious thought born of utter panic, but Katie was beyond caring. She laughed, eyes shut and with tears rolling down her cheeks. Crazy, but better than spending her last few seconds sobbing and begging for her life.

  <>

  The voice wasn’t spoken aloud; Katie’s ears were still full of her own laughter. Instead, it rang out inside her mind itself, like a private thought but twice as loud.

  All at once, her laughter stopped and the fear reasserted itself. A violent trembling began with her jaw and spread throughout her body in the time it took to snatch a quick breath.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. It took all her effort just to force the air out of her lungs. Terror seemed to have made her throat seize up. “P-please. Please, no. Don’t hurt me.”

  <>

  The voice echoed through her mind again, loud enough to be deafening and leave her thoughts scrambled. It was like a ringing in her ears, only without the physical effects. She shook her head, but it didn’t help.

  “Could you keep it down?” she said, wincing. “That’s… really loud.”

  All at once, the creature stopped moving, even the writhing of its Doc Ock arms. Slowly, it cocked its head and took a few skittering steps toward her.

  All at once, the room was lit. Not that it made things much better. If her thoughts hadn’t still been a mess and her eyes stinging from the sudden illumination, Katie would have certainly screamed aloud. The creature’s face looked like some bizarre fusion of a human, a lizard, and a spider. The arrangement of facial features was only somewhat familiar—forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth—though this was not precisely comforting. The mouth was undersized, toothless, and split both horizontally and vertically to form a disgusting star that stretched and gaped with what she assumed to be the being’s breath. There was no tongue and, upon closer inspection, there didn’t appear to be any sort of throat—were they some sort of gills perhaps?

  The nose was practically nonexistent, and consisted of nothing more than four small holes that Katie assumed were nostrils. In fact, for all she knew, they could have been eyes for all the resemblance the creature’s bore to human ones. There were six, each perfectly round and a glistening, inky silver in color. Or, maybe even ears. There didn’t seem to be any of those, either, despite the fact the creature could apparently hear her.

  With each passing second, the features grew more repulsive to her and Katie searched for something to look at that wouldn’t threaten to upset her stomach. The forehead won by default—how many ways could you mess that up? The brow was long, narrow and shaped almost like a rugby ball, albeit one covered in tiny, opalescent scales.

  “Well,” she said. “This has been perfectly horrifying. I’d like to wake up now.”

  <>

  “Figures. Let me guess. You’re a Glip-Glop from the third dimension or something?”

  <>

  “Great. Just great. So are you like… actual aliens, then?”

  <>

  Sighing, Katie flopped back onto the mattress. She closed her eyes, as much as her instincts screamed at her not to look away from the alien for even an instant. What was the point of fighting or posturing when she was so obviously helpless?

  “All right,” she said. “Go ahead. Anal probe me, or whatever.”

  <>

  Muttering a curse, Katie kicked a leg in the air. She held it there for a moment, blushing as she imagined the alien’s too-many eyes inspecting her exposed privates. Still, there was something liberating about even that small act of defiance.

  Of course, it also meant she was wildly off balance when the manacle around her wrist detached from the bed. She toppled sideways, landing hard on the floor and sucking in a pained breath at the pain that flared in her side. Wincing, it took her a moment to climb to her feet.

  <>

  Katie shook her head. Then, when it occurred to her that the gesture might be lost on the alien, she spoke.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  <>

  “Wait!” Katie said, louder than she’d intended. She retreated a few steps until her naked back met the cold surface of the too-smooth wall. “I have some questions first.”

  <>

  “What’s your name?”

  <>

  Frowning, Katie pressed a hand to her chest and spread her fingers wide.

  “You know… your name? Like, what you’re called. I’m Katie. Katie Underwood.”

  <>

  “No, that’s—Fine. Whatever. Ambassador, where
am I?”

  <
  Katie’s blood ran cold. “Wait. Like… in space?”

  <>

  “Oh, God.” Even though she’d half-suspected the truth ever since the alien appeared, hearing it spoken aloud somehow made everything worse. Katie leaned against the wall, suddenly dizzy. “Why me? What am I doing here?”

  <>

  “Wait, inter-what?”

  <> The alien tapped its large, scaly forehead with one tentacle-arm, then pointed the opposite one toward her. <>

  “Oh. Well, thanks so much for clearing that up.”

  <>

  ***

  <> Ambassador said. He led Katie down a wide hallway, seemingly oblivious to the way she stopped every twenty paces or so to gawk at the fantastic, mind-boggling views afforded by the oddly shaped, alien windows. Stars, unfamiliar planets, and an endless sea of impossible blackness extended as far as the eye could see, like something out of a sci-fi blockbuster.

  All in all, it made it rather hard to keep up.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, when the words he’d not-spoken managed to penetrate her distracted thoughts. “There are like… seven billion of us.”

  <>

  “I don’t understand,” Katie said. She ceased walking and studied the alien, frowning. “So what? I mean, it’s not good, obviously, but it’s only eight percent.”

  <> Ambassador said. His pace slowed, but he continued to move, as if to gently usher her along. His voice, however, did not seem to grow any fainter the further ahead he traveled. <>

  “Precautions?” Katie echoed, dryly. “Like me?”

  <>

  A certain temper overpowered her reason at the nonchalance in Ambassador’s tone. Gritting her teeth, she stomped toward him and snapped venomously.

  “Well! Good to know I won’t be able to end the world!”

  Ambassador raised one slender arm, perhaps approximating an attempt to calm her.

  <>

  “Then why? Just that damn lucky?”

  <>

  And, so they were. Katie followed the alien reluctantly, crossing her arms over her chest in irritation. As they passed through a large, black sliding door, the overhead light went suddenly dark, plunging both the room and the hallway behind them into total blackness.

  When they came back on, Katie immediately wished they hadn’t.

  A half-dozen men—naked, so there could be no question there—were chained and shackled in a row along the far wall. Their heads were covered by some sort of opaque, quivering spheres that reminded her, bizarrely, of water in zero gravity. Several among them drooped against their chests in what she prayed was sleep.

  Horrified by the sight of the men, and their current predicament, Katie nevertheless felt her gaze drawn with dread fascination to their waists. Some sort of unfamiliar looking fabric had been looped around their abdomens and upper thighs, as if designed to keep their hips as steady as possible.

  She took a half-step backward, directly into the now sealed door they’d passed through.

  “W-what—” she stammered. “What the fuck is this?”

  <> Ambassador said. <>

  “What?”

  <>

  “No, I meant… you know what? Never mind.”

  <>

  Katie suddenly felt very lightheaded. She stared at Ambassador, trying to ignore the naked men chained up behind him long enough to make her brain work properly. Eventually, it did, bringing a tidal wave of righteous indignation with it.

  “My presence?” she raged. “You bought me here—kidnapped me!—to be some kind of… alien porn star?”

  True to form, Ambassador did not even blink. Though, come to think of it, Katie wasn’t even sure if he could. Not that it mattered, since he ignored her protest altogether as he approached one the man on the far right of the row. Reaching up, he wrapped a slender tentacle around the man’s cock. His victim awoke instantly, thrashing violently in his restraints until his member slipped free of Ambassador’s grasp. Even after, his muffled, wordless shouting continued for several seconds.

  <> Ambassador said. <>

  The bottom dropped out of Katie’s stomach and she hugged herself tighter, suddenly very cold. She sank down into a terrified crouch, pointlessly trying to vanish behind her own knees.

  “No,” she whispered. “I can’t do that. There’s no way.”

  For the first time, Ambassador looked at her with an expression other than his perpetually blank one. His enormous, grey scaled brow furrowed questioningly.

  <> he said. <>

  “But, I—it’s not—there’s more to it than that!”

  Ambassador ignored her.

  <>

  “That’s not the point!” Katie shouted. The desperation in her voice caught her off-guard and only added to the feeling that her life—or what remained of it, at least—was spiraling out of control. She balled her hands into fists. “I’m not just going to fuck a bunch of strangers!”

  <> Ambassador explained, as though it was the most obvious thing in the universe. <>

  Katie scoffed. Then, after deciding it had failed to convey her anger, she turned and spat onto the floor.

  “You can fuck right off,” she snapped. “Find someone else.”

  Ambassador stepped toward her, talon-hooves echoing off the floor. His expression never changed and though there was nothing in his posture to suggest he was perturbed by her display of temper. But somehow, even with his perpetually flat tone in her mind, there was an unmistakable sense that something had changed.

  <> he said. <>

  Katie swallowed hard and, finding her mouth had gone dry, did it again. She was only too aware of the locked door behind her and the apparent labyrinth of alien passageways beyond. There was no hope of escape. And besides, if they really were light-years from Earth, what would be the point? Maybe it would be better to deal with the devil she knew.

  “What sort of purpose?” she asked, even as the answer occurred to her.

  Ambassador cocked his head—probably the most human mannerism he’d displ
ayed so far—and gestured to the men behind him with one hyper-flexible tentacle.

  <> he said. <>

  Katie’s shoulders slumped and she leaned against the door behind her to remain upright. The strength seemed to have fled from her limbs and it was all she could do not to drop to ground altogether.

  “Okay,” she said weakly. “I’ll do it.”

  ***

  It was unthinkable. Simply unthinkable.

  How could an alien race have become advanced enough to invent faster-than-light travel without also inventing gloves? Ambassador—or just one of the Ambassadors? She still wasn’t quite sure about that—had simply stared at her in confusion when she’d asked for them. Eventually, after several minutes of increasingly frustrating conversation and miming, he’d simply dismissed her concerns by assuring her that the men were free of any disease or harmful bacteria. Which, though comforting in its own way, completely failed to address the issue at hand.

  Namely, Katie didn’t want hers touching a bunch of unfamiliar dicks.

  Unfortunately, it seemed to be pointless to protest further. And so, utterly aware of her own nakedness, she reluctantly inched forward while Ambassador explained the specific process he’d been unable to perform on his own.

  Attached to one of the many restraints that fastened the men to the wall was a small, semi-transparent test tube of sorts. Despite her dread for what was to come—literally and figuratively—Katie couldn’t help but be surprised by the simplicity of it all. Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply ask the men to do the job themselves? It seemed so intuitive that she actually asked Ambassador directly.

  <> he said, pausing in his tutorial. <